1. Field of the Invention
Example embodiments generally relate to a collection container, a cleaning unit, and an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to a collection container for collecting and containing waste toner, and a cleaning unit and an image forming apparatus each of which includes the collection container.
2. Description of the Related Art
Related-art image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, facsimile machines, printers, or multifunction printers having at least one of copying, printing, scanning, and facsimile functions, typically form an image on a recording medium (e.g., a recording sheet) according to image data. Thus, for example, a charger uniformly charges a surface of an image carrier; an optical writer emits a light beam onto the charged surface of the image carrier to form an electrostatic latent image on the image carrier according to the image data; a development device supplies toner to the electrostatic latent image formed on the image carrier to make the electrostatic latent image visible as a toner image; the toner image is directly transferred from the image carrier onto a recording medium or is indirectly transferred from the image carrier onto a recording medium via an intermediate transfer member; a cleaner then cleans the surface of the image carrier after the toner image is transferred from the image carrier onto the recording medium; finally, a fixing device applies heat and pressure to the recording medium bearing the toner image to fix the toner image on the recording medium, thus forming the image on the recording medium.
In such image forming apparatuses, the cleaner removes residual toner (e.g., waste toner) not used for forming the toner image and therefore remaining on the surface of the image carrier from the surface of the image carrier. The removed waste toner is collected into a collection container. When the collection container is full of waste toner, the collection container is replaced with another empty collection container.
Market demand for compact image forming apparatuses may require, among other things, that the collection container be capable of collecting waste toner efficiently in order to reduce the frequency of replacement of the collection container.
To address such demand, a toner sensor may be provided in an upper portion of the collection container outside the collection container to detect waste toner collected and accumulated in the collection container. When the toner sensor detects the waste toner, a user is notified that the collection container is full of waste toner. However, the waste toner may accumulate unevenly, concentrating in only a part of the collection container, and consequently the toner sensor may indicate that the collection container is full when it is not.
To address this problem, the collection container may further include a swing mechanism for swinging or shaking the collection container periodically. However, the swing mechanism may generate noise, and the toner sensor may need to be provided inside the collection container, resulting in increased manufacturing costs for the collection container. Further, the user may need to electrically connect the swing mechanism of the collection container to a power source whenever the user replaces the collection container with another empty one.
Alternatively, the collection container may include an agitation screw provided in an upper portion of the collection container to even out the accumulated waste toner to provide more accurate sensor readings. However, particularly with compact image forming apparatuses, the space available for the collection container is restricted, requiring that the collection container assume a complex shape in order to fit into the available space. When the collection container has a complex shape, the agitation screw may not even out the accumulated waste toner properly because the waste toner may not be evenly accumulated inside the collection container.
To address this problem, the collection container with a complex shape may include a circulation mechanism for circulating the waste toner in the complex collection container. The circulation mechanism may include a leveling member for circulating the waste toner in the complex collection container and a driver for driving the leveling member. However, the leveling member moves the waste toner in one direction only, generating a dead space not containing the waste toner inside the collection container.